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OxyContin Makers Plead Guilty to Deceiving Public About Drug's Addictiveness

May 10, 2007 04:44 PM

by
findingDulcinea Staff

Executives from The Purdue Frederick Co., maker of the painkiller OxyContin, have admitted that the company’s sales staff told doctors, despite knowledge to the contrary, that the drug was hard to abuse and less addictive than other pain medications.

Like heroin, OxyContin is derived from the opium poppy and can be highly addictive; when crushed and then swallowed, snorted, or injected, the drug can also produce a heroinlike high.

Despite knowledge of OxyContin’s addictive dangers, the Purdue Frederick Co. fraudulently marketed the drug by telling doctors that not only was it hard to abuse, but it was less addictive than other pain medications, and wouldn’t create withdrawal symptoms in patients.

The drugmaker has now admitted its public deception, agreeing to pay $635 million to settle charges of fraudulent marketing filed by one of Virginia’s State Attorneys.

Since being approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1995, OxyContin has become a highly sought after street drug in the eastern United States. The painkiller made regular headlines during the late ‘90s and early 2000s as reports of teen abuse, pharmacy robberies, and high-profile addictions proliferated in the media.

The settlement is reminiscent of the case against the tobacco industry, in which “Big Tobacco” agreed to pay $246 billion for misleading the public about the health risks of smoking.

Court papers revealed that Purdue Frederick knew as early as 1995 that doctors had misgivings about OxyContin’s potential for addiction and abuse. The drugmaker earned $2.8 billion in OxyContin sales from 1996 to 2001.

In its public statement, Purdue tried to distance itself from liability for the abuse of OxyContin: “Any attempt to connect the agreed to plea of misbranding by Purdue with abuse and diversion of OxyContin is completely false.” Document in pdf format.

In a press release following Purdue’s guilty plea, prosecuting U.S. Attorney John Brownlee summed up the drugmaker’s crimes: “Even in the face of warnings from health care professionals, the media, and members of its own sales force that OxyContin was being widely abused and causing harm to our citizens, Purdue, under the leadership of its top executives, continued to push a fraudulent marketing campaign.”

Sidney M. Wolfe, MD, Director of the Health Research Group of Public Citizen had a mixed reaction to the plea saying that although the penalties “send an important message to the drug industry that this kind of malicious, death-dealing behavior will not be tolerated. … The message could have been much stronger.”

In an area south of Boston, more and more young adults who have experimented with OxyContin are becoming heroin addicts. According to the Boston Globe, addicts said that after experimenting with and becoming addicted to the powerful painkiller in high school, they turned to heroin once the pills got too expensive.

In 2005, Time magazine chronicled the harmful impact OxyContin addiction had on Tazewell County, Virginia. The 520 square mile plot of Appalachia countryside had seen the number of addiction related robberies, burglaries, and thefts shoot up 48% in only five years.

In 2005, NPR reported on the rising numbers of teenagers developing OxyContin addictions. According to a survey cited in the article, 1 in 20 high school seniors admitted to taking the powerful painkiller, marking a 40 percent increase over the previous three years.

In a 2004 article, Slate examined how the frenzy of media attention surrounding OxyContin abuse may have distorted the reality of the problem. The article criticizes the media for misrepresenting the OxyContin addicts featured in prominent papers across the country: “the entire OxyContin "epidemic" is based on a false narrative that asserts that the majority of OxyContin addicts begin as drug-naive pain patients.”

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D- R.I.) admitted that he had an OxyContin addiction on NBC’s Today Show in March 2007. Kennedy, the son of Sen. Ed Kennedy (D-Mass.), said that he empathized “with millions of Americans who feel that sense of shame at calling themselves addicts and alcoholics.” Video and story.

In October 2003, Rush Limbaugh revealed on his radio program that he had become addicted to OxyContin after an unsuccessful spinal surgery. The announcement came after Limbaugh’s name came up during an investigation into a Florida black market drug ring.

In a similar case during the 1990s, a number of states sued the tobacco industry for misleading the public about the health risks of smoking. “Big Tobacco” decided to settle the charges out of court, paying a total of $246 billion dollars to the states involved. Although that money was supposed to go to treating sick smokers and funding antismoking campaigns, CBS News revealed in 2005 that very little of the money had reached its intended recipients.